Not only do the new 2K restoration of Ace in the Hole and new 4K restored digital transfer of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou look fantastic, but the films themselves seem timeless now.
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Blu-ray/DVD Reviews
In celebration of the 60th anniversary of the original Gojira and in anticipation of Godzilla, Toho Studios releases 8 of its Godzilla films in two disc Blu-ray sets. Each of these double feature sets boast a new high definition digital transfer of films released from 1991 to 2004.
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Ben Stiller’s ‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’ and Mark Mori’s documentary ‘Bettie Page Reveals All’ make their way to Blu-ray and DVD.
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Not only does it feature two bumbling pals as “heroes” and comic relief, but The Hidden Fortress is a rollicking adventure, complete with castles, lots of extras and landscape shots, and Kurosawa’s first Tohoscope widescreen presentation
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The concept of Punk In Africa (out now from MVD Visual) is amazing – underground bands, in the time of apartheid, integrating racially and playing music that speaks truth.
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Two films from last year that both employ odd narration strategies couldn’t be farther apart in tone, actually. Here’s a review of American Hustle and The Book Thief, new out on Blu-ray now:
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Perhaps more than any other art-house European film of the 1960s, Ingmar Bergman’s striking 1966 masterpiece Persona embodies the period.
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The only shock that registered when Spike Lee’s Oldboy was released in theaters was at how little money it made. It shows just how far violence in the movies has come in 10 short years, because this new Oldboy — released today on Blu-ray and packaged with a digital copy — is technically more overtly graphic.
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There’s an immersive summer camp experience waiting for her Keri Russell in ‘Austenland,’ out on Blu-ray, where actors in period costumes play out the typical Austen roles as women like her live out their fantasies. Like strippers, however, there is no actual intimacy at Austenland.
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The Armstrong Lie is a fascinating portrait of a man in denial, told from the firsthand perspective of Gibney, who himself was duped at a certain level by Armstrong’s own confidence and charm. Wadjda is about an 11-year-old girl in Saudi Arabia who longs for some of the same freedoms that women in the Western world take for granted.
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Stop-motion animation is a painstakingly long process, one point made perfectly clear by many of the excellent special features on the Criterion Dual Format Blu-ray-DVD combo of Wes Anderson‘s 2009 Roald Dahl adaptation Fantastic Mr. Fox.
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Out on DVD now, the independent horror movie Banshee Chapter is a weird amalgamation of a found-footage movie and a governmental conspiracy thriller.
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If the broad lowest-common denominator comedy Last Vegas is The Hangover of oldster party movies, then the indie feature Old Goats is that genre’s Best in Show.
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Filmed in the docudrama style that has become Paul Greengrass’s trademark, ‘Captain Phillips’ is out now in a Blu-ray/DVD/Ultraviolet Combo Pack.
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One year before the death of Martin Luther King Jr., with the civil rights movement in full swing and the black power movement on the way, Hollywood produced a movie that used the classic Hollywood narrative style that people were used to, but in the service of a story they weren’t used to seeing.
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